


small and helpless

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: (even if i could) make a deal with god [your blue-eyed boys related short-fic] [38]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Disabled Character, Gen, Hypervigilance, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, Just Add Kittens, Mentally Ill Character, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, if you put helpless things that need him in front of Bucky Barnes he will look after them, it's an unavoidable reflex, original female character of colour - Freeform, social interaction is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 16:02:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3387845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky looks down at it. It's small, small enough to fit easily in his hand, and orange. Its eyes are closed, but he thinks that's because of the crust on them, like some kind of discharge glued them shut. It's a short-hair and it's orange and that's about all he can tell - the closest he's ever been to cats before that he remembers are back-alley strays and even those are recollections are fuzzy, faint, things he hadn't bothered thinking about because they were normal and so now, after all the fucking mess, aren't clear. </p><p>[The kitten's first forty-eight hours part one.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	small and helpless

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of [**this series**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/132585), which is for short-fic associated with my fic [**your blue-eyed boys**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/107477), because I needed somewhere to stash it. 
> 
> I basically wrote this because I'd upset myself, and also because I love Chloe.

This time the girls are quiet long enough that when they start talking again their words are just part of the background buzz of tone and noise that inevitably comes from the building, and Bucky derives no particular meaning from them. The kitten in his hand looks up at him and mews. 

No: it tilts its head up at him. It's not _looking_ at anything, not with its eyes shut like that. 

Bucky looks down at it. It's small, small enough to fit easily in his hand, and orange. Its eyes are closed, but he thinks that's because of the crust on them, like some kind of discharge glued them shut. It's a short-hair and it's orange and that's about all he can tell - the closest he's ever been to cats before that he remembers are back-alley strays and even those are recollections are fuzzy, faint, things he hadn't bothered thinking about because they were normal and so now, after all the fucking mess, aren't clear. 

Well. If it couldn't see, that explained why it'd been sniffing at him. After lifting it up, shifting so he's holding it around the middle at eye-level until it bleats at him again, he sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose, and goes to find a shirt. 

 

In the bedroom he puts the kitten on the bed. It sniffs around a little bit and then crouches where it is, probably more than a bit confused and frightened by a place that smells completely alien and probably sounds even stranger. The Maligaya girl's place would be full of noise, with the little yappy dog and the twins and the five year old, and full of the smells of six people living in a three-bedroom condo. 

He had overheard the fight when the girl first brought the kittens home, one that had gone on for a while at a kind of frantic emotional pitch, and only ended because of the grandmother suddenly shouting over her son about being hard-hearted and grasping and teaching his kids to be the same. The grandmother didn't exactly rule the house - most of the time she didn't say much, or seem to do much and Bucky suspected she was the one sleeping in the living-room, welded to a comfortable chair and not leaving it more often than she had to - but when she started shouting what she said mostly went. 

Bucky'd started paying attention to the noise from there when he'd pinned that condo down as where one of Mercedes' friends lived, and the old woman's accusation wasn't really fair - her son just doesn't deal well with surprises, and really doesn't deal well with surprises that are likely to cost money. 

And when it comes to it, if he agonizes about savings and expenses (and he does) you barely have to look through his files at home to realize that everything he can conceivably spare's going into college savings funds and carefully managed plans all aimed at getting four kids through school with either somewhere to live or something to drive. 

(There aren't any suites in the building Bucky hasn't quietly broken into, at one point or another. Some of them took longer than others because he had to wait until someone took a dog somewhere else, but by now even the part of his head wound up tightest isn't looking for an enemy in the hallways or coming out of the walls: there's nothing here he can't deal with no matter how badly off he is.) 

Gramma's intervention meant that in the end the kid was allowed to keep the kittens and get them looked at if she could either pay for it out of her allowance or if she could get the vet student on the ground floor to do it, and her dad took her to go get whatever the hell you fed newborn kittens, and she was allowed look after them and look for homes for them for a couple weeks before they'd go to a shelter. It seemed like everyone could handle that: the shouting stopped, at least. 

Bucky hadn't paid much attention after that. Up till now. 

He pulls on a shirt and the half-glove, scoops the kitten up again and this time holds it close enough to look at its closed eyes, and to run his right index finger lightly over them - definitely stuck shut. But it also turns its head, trying to rub against his fingers, and he sighs again. 

It's not like he's even a little bit unsure of _why_ he took it. Between the kid's obvious half-offended intensity about proving something to her friends and her rapid-pace recitation of what was likely to happen to it the whole thing got under his skin - and if part of him's trying to have a panic attack because, on a relative scale, Steve's not even that crazy about cats and cats come with expense . . . 

Well. At least _one_ benefit of last night's bullshit is he's too tired and too bruised and way too fucking irritable to put up with his own brain's shit, and it can't get any traction against the part that knows - with a lot more cause, a lot more experience and a lot more God-damn evidence - that Steve's going to think this is _fucking hilarious_ to start with, and to follow and more importantly he'd get seriously fucking upset and (if he were honest about it, which he wouldn't be) offended if he knew Bucky so much as let worry about money flit across his skull, even _if_ just out of habit so ingrained it might as well be carved in. 

(It's nebulous, chaotic and ungrounded worry, anyway: between inflation, technological innovation and flat out brain-damage Bucky has a hard time making modern money figures even make sense without a lot of fucking work, can't easily translate from abstract numbers to meaningful measures of worth, and most of the time he doesn't bother. Within the first few weeks of coming home he'd managed to break into enough of Steve's stuff to know that the salary and danger pay from two years at SHIELD had been extremely high, and that Romanova appeared to have convinced - honestly probably bullied - Steve into investing a bunch of it, and that the investments consistently paid. He hadn't been looking for that at the time, hadn't really been looking for anything at the time, except everything there could be to know in the hopes that somehow, some of it would make sense; it was useful now as part of the tripod that keeps him from finding another reason to lose his shit.) 

The kitten makes another couple of noises and reaches one paw out towards his face. He readjusts it so it's mostly being held up by his wrist under its stomach, absently puts one of the smaller knives from the dresser into the pocket of the zip-up sweatshirt he pulled on, and heads towards the bottom floor. 

 

The vet student's technically a renter, which means she sends her maternal grandmother in over in Queens some money every month she can afford it. She's technically got more pets than the strata rules allow, but nobody's going to call her on it. She's half-Chinese, bilingual, tiny, gay, wears black-framed glasses, wobbles between being observant and oblivious, and buys everything she wears from a thrift store. 

It takes Bucky longer than he likes to remember her name in English is _Chloe_. 

She opens the door with the distracted, squinting look of someone dragged out of studying, and in her case someone who needs their bangs trimmed because they're overhanging her glasses. The rest of her hair's back in a messy bun held up by a pencil and looks like it hasn't been washed in a few days. She's in pyjama bottoms and a drapey green cardigan, her feet are bare, she looks like she's short a few hours of sleep at least, and both of her greyhounds are trying to peer out into the hallway around her. 

The air that comes out of her place smells, not bad, but a way that unmistakably says animals other than humans live there, and that she needs to wash her dishes. To him, anyway. 

Chloe blinks at him a few times after the initial mutual echoes of _hi_ , but catches sight of the small thing in his hand and exclaims, "Oh, you took a kitten!" before Bucky says anything else. Her entire demeanour shifts, her shoulders straightening and her centre of weight dropping back into balance, like she's waking up as she stands there. She pushes the door open wider and says, "Come on in, don't mind the dogs they're just kinda silly, they won't try to get out but they will probably try to lick the baby." 

Greyhounds aren't a problem: their shape's too obviously thin and fragile, their body-language too abject and appeasing when it comes to any kind of human. The kitten squeaks at them and tries to climb up his shirt, and he mostly lets it, leaving his right hand lightly against its back so that if its grip fails it won't end up on the floor. 

The condo's dim, mostly in a way that says nobody's remembered blinds can open for a few days and actually they'd get better light than from the lamps. The small living-room floor is covered with wobbling semi-circles of papers and books around a cushion and a netbook, decorated with the occasional mug, teacup and bowl. Everything has the kind of messiness that says someone who's usually pretty clean and tidy hasn't done anything for about a week. Especially the kitchen. 

"Um," Chloe says, pausing and looking around, "excuse my mess, school's kicking my a - butt. That is one of the babies LeAnn was fostering, right?" She darts back and peers. "Ooo, it's the little girl with the eye-infection and looks like she needs her eyes wiped, I have stuff for that. And some formula and a bottle I can give you. Wait, have you had a cat before?" 

The words are cheerful and friendly and fall over each other like she's emptying buckets of them out of her head. She's like a small, nervous bird, all sudden movement and flailing, moving hands and it makes Bucky want to hold her still so she'll stop moving erratically around the room, into and out of his space, so he can stop being distracted by the motion of her arms or the way she shifts her weight. 

Or it would make him want to, if he weren't holding any kind of real reaction at arm's length for the sake of this not being a mistake. "No, no cats," he says, as the kitten tries to climb up his shoulder. 

"Okay, well," Chloe says, looking serious for a minute, and for that minute she _does_ move less and her fingers interlace in front of her chest, but her words get no slower, just lower in pitch: "I gotta say - okay, LeAnn's got a really big heart, she's a sweet girl and so are her friends, but if you got talked into this it's okay if you wanna back out, because I'm gonna tell you that these kittens still need hand-feeding and they're about half-litter trained and this one especially needs to have her eyes cleaned a lot and drops put in. I don't think she's ever gonna see - think it's too late for her - but she should be okay otherwise, but you might wanna have a, like, full vet look at her and that's a lot of, you know, responsibility and time-consuming, so I'm just letting you know." 

She pauses and takes a breath and says, "I'm Chloe, by the way - did you know that? Have we met? I'm really bad with that." 

She holds out her hand. Bucky shifts to holding up the kitten with the other and shakes hers, briefly: her hands are small, long-fingered for their size, the joints and bones delicate, skin cool and dry. "We haven't," he says, mildly and distantly amused. "James. And it's fine. I don't have much else to do." 

"Okay!" she says, brightly, and starts moving again, apparently prepared to take him at his word. "So I couldn't do one for everyone but I got a few sort of, like, starter kits ready from stuff the clinic didn't mind me taking, and since you never had a cat it'd probably be good if you took one - here," she says, digging in one of her kitchen cupboards and pulling out a cloth grocery bag. "It's got formula, and a bottle, and some cat litter - you can just put it in a roaster pan or something to start with, it's not like she needs much room you know? - and a, like, print out of what she'll probably need for like a bed and stuff, plus a list of places you can get more formula and kinds of food that are best when she starts eating them and stuff. I think it's everything, if not I'm usually here and if I'm not I'll be home after class or after work and I don't mind answering questions. And for her . . ."

Chloe digs in a drawer for a minute and comes up with a bottle. "There! These are the drops," she says, "I mean, technically I'm not a vet so I can't actually prescribe these for her or anything, but it's what you'd get if you went to my clinic and asked Dr Santiago, so. I've been getting LeAnn to bring her down here to put them in - I should probably show you how to wash her eyes and put the drops in, if you got a minute?" 

"That'd be fine," he says, because while the internet'd probably have everything he needs to know, he might as well and he has no real excuse not to. 

Chloe takes the kitten and doesn't actually stop talking the entire time she puts it - her - on the counter and finds a wash cloth and uses warm water to dissolve the gunk and clean it out, or as she's putting the drops in. The kitten tries ineffectually to bat at her hands and squirm away, and most of Chloe's chatter is sing-song baby-talk with semi-mocking sympathy for how much the thing is obviously not enjoying this. 

"It usually won't be this much work," Chloe adds, glancing up, "especially if you keep an eye on it and clean up the gunk while it's still wet it'll just be a bit of a wipe. I think LeAnn was just taking them around a lot and forgot how often she needed to check. There we go. Aw, bebe," she adds, pursing her lips at the squeaking kitten and handing it back to Bucky. 

He's distantly, wryly amused at himself when he ends up curving his left arm so the kitten's held against his chest, his body not actually asking him before it does it. "Aw, bebe," Chloe says again, and then, "right, okay - um, I think that's everything, did you have any questions? _Oh_ , right, and please please get her spayed," she adds. "If money is a problem the clinic I work for is great about instalments and getting her fixed will help keep any future costs down, I promise. Um. But anything else?" Now for a moment she looks uncertain and slightly guilty. "I mean. If there is I'm totally happy to answer, but just, if there's not, I don't mean to be all rush-y but I got way too much studying to do," she finishes, with a sigh that's probably more telling than she means it to be. 

"No," he says, smiling at her, "I was honestly just coming down to ask you about the eye-infection, so this is lots. Thanks." 

She beams back at him. "No problem!" she says. "And like I said, if something comes up go right ahead and call me - oh! I should write down my phone number, right, use your brain Chloe - here." She tears off the corner of a takeout menu and scribbles almost unreadable digits on it, hands it to him. "There. I'm really glad this one's got a home, anyway. She seems to like you," she adds, as she follows him to take the door and close it behind him, "she's not complaining as much as she usually does." 

He doesn't really have a response to that, but fortunately she's already waved and closed the door. 

 

Upstairs, he drags out the burnt pan from the bottom of the cupboard and dumps the litter into it, upends the rest of the bag Chloe gave him on the kitchen table. There's a bottle, enough formula for a couple days, some coupons for kitten food and a folded up piece of paper with fairly readable, detailed instructions on when to feed and how, with bits of it underlined or adorned with six or seven exclamation points. Or both. 

None of it is exactly complicated. Bedding might be a bit of a pain but there's enough cardboard boxes and it'll be a use for the heating pad that lives in the cupboard, otherwise, because it turns out heat on just one part of his skin isn't actually a comforting thing. 

The kitten's eyes are technically open now, but she's got them mostly squinted shut still and doesn't seem like she can see much, if at all. Bucky can see what Chloe meant about the discharge, though, and gets a piece of paper towel to carefully wipe the little thing's eyes clean. Then he feeds her, which is easier than the paper makes it sound. 

And about then the collar of his shirt starts feeling like - something he doesn't want to think about, thanks, again, and he mentally snarls. He puts the kitten in the litter, turns up the heat again and strips the shirt off. Folds it and puts it away, because less than a fucking hour doesn't count as dirty. 

He watches the tiny thing, for the next little while. Ends up sitting on the floor of the living-room, watching her sniff her way around and bat at things and try to climb the futon cover. Which works until one of her claws fails to catch, and she ends up on the floor with a little bleat. He's picking her up before he actually thinks about it. Again. 

Her noises are less like actual cat-noises and more just like squeaks and squawks, and he absently makes a mental note to hit youtube to find out if that's normal. The instructions-paper estimated she's about three and a half weeks old, maybe a little bit younger and like he has any fucking idea what's normal for a baby cat. 

When he gets back up to sit on the futon, she makes another try at climbing the cover and this time it works; then she gives a shot at climbing up onto his stomach and padding up his torso to sniff at him. A couple of times tiny, tiny claws prickle on his skin, but it's not exactly a problem. 

She's almost too tiny to pet properly, except once he starts the purr she eventually comes out with sounds like it should be coming from something about a dozen times her size. She flops over on her side, fur tickling the front of his shoulder, and her eyes deliberately squeezed shut this time. She purrs for about three minutes and then it tapers off, and she ends up so asleep that when Bucky moves her over slightly so she doesn't slide down between him and the back of the couch and get crushed to death, she doesn't even twitch, stays floppy enough it'd be worrying if he couldn't feel and see her breathe. 

He ends up resting with his right hand half-covering her and says, "Might live to regret this, cat," the words coming more easily in Russian than English right now. He's probably really talking to himself anyway: alley-cat's litter with a dead mom, basically any place in the world is looking up for the little thing. 

Steve, he thinks with a sigh, is going to be _obnoxious_.


End file.
